English transcript

And back to our earlier point, I think we have a very responsible, accurate media in

this country that we should be very grateful for on weeks like this when we compare again

back to the United States.

Okay, but let's talk a bit more about this rural-urban divide. And it is interesting.

I think there is this perception that of depopulation of rural Ireland, which actually isn't quite

accurate when you look at the figures. Then there's a perception perhaps that all rural

Ireland is agriculture-based, which again isn't necessarily the case. If you look at

the proportion of people who are working in agriculture and in farming as part of the

overall population, you start having to wonder, are they getting a disproportionate influence

over political decisions? Because you mentioned there, Áine, about the protests with the

Borbía situation, but I suppose even more significant, a nitrates directive was put

in place for, I think it's only about 7,000 farmers who actually benefit from that, but

a lot of political capital is used up in the European Union in getting that. You also have,

but far more significant, Ireland would benefit enormously from the Mercosur deal, and yet

we had the government voting against it because it had promised that in the programme for

government, again, to keep rural TDs happy. So could it be that we actually, maybe for

historical reasons, are maybe giving too much power to the farmers?

I think that's actually playing out at the moment. If you look at most of Ireland's history,

what was good for farmers and the wide agricultural industry was what was good for Ireland.

So you go back to the land reform movement before independence, what was good for Ireland

was crucially tied up with what was good for farmers, tenant farmers being able to buy their

own land. Even when we joined the European Union, the huge benefits there were for agriculture.

And I think what we've seen happen in the last 10 or 20 years, and it's not really been

commented on or written on much, is we're now in a space where things are actually starting

to go the other way, is that what's in the interests of farmers and the agriculture

industry is by and large not in the interests of Ireland as a nation. And that's starting to

play out, and farmers and people in that sector don't quite realise that yet. They still see

themselves as the people who bring money and jobs into Ireland, where actually a lot of

the time they bring costs on Ireland.

Yeah, and they also argue we're the people who are feeding Ireland, and yet ironically...

Which is also not true.

Yeah, 80% of the food that we consume is actually imported. So that means that if you don't have

the hauliers bringing the food in, yes, then we suddenly have a problem. Irish farmers cannot

feed the country.

And it's actually worse than that. We now have so many cattle in Ireland that we can't

grow enough grass to feed them. So we bring in grain from South America, from Mercosur

countries to feed the cattle, and we bring in oil-based fertilisers from other parts of the

world, and that then pollutes our rivers, and then we all pay the bill.